Before doing any serious marketing for your business, or before spending any more money on marketing, you need to know what kind of results you are looking for. Using marketing metrics can tell you a lot of things but unless you adjust your marketing program to improve the metrics, you really are wasting your time. Metrics can be a powerful tool to help you tweak your marketing dollars to see greater results (ROI).
Without the right kind of analytics, marketing becomes guesswork. Taking time to understand the numbers and data can enable your business to see a sudden shift in profit. Watch out for metrics that might make your numbers look good but add nothing to your bottom line.
Get Quality Leads
There is a difference between getting a high volume of leads and getting quality leads. The high volume may only result in a few sales but, having a few quality leads could bring in a lot more profit.
Determine which leads are quality and put them into a separate email list. Target that list when you want to see your business grow. Leave the rest in a general or email drip campaign. Sites like MailChimp can provide you with excellent metrics on your email marketing campaigns.
Google Analytics or KISSmetrics will give you excellent information about your website traffic.
Social Media
Many industries boost their traffic with social media marketing – but some large companies no longer use this method. It is a good way to get your message out, but constant attention needs to be given to it because it can also work against you. New forms of social media are coming out all the time and you need to learn which ones your customers are going to.
Content Marketing
Instead of merely seeking to post large volumes of blog posts and other content, look at the metrics to find you what type of content is drawing the most people to your website and write on similar topics. At the same time, learn what content is bringing in the most ROI. You will also want to find out if long-form works better than short-form and how long the ideal post is for your target market.
Metrics You Need
If you are a small business and do not have a lot of time (who does?), make your marketing dollars go further by focusing on a few metrics – also referred to as key performance indicators (KPI). The ones you need to watch the most include:
- Conversion rates – how many people are responding to your offer or to sign-up on your landing page?
- Best media – which media is providing the most leads or profit?
- Cost for each lead – different media will produce different results. Tweaking each one – or at least the most profitable one can bring even better results.
- Profit – if some media channels clearly get better results, use more advertising dollars in it.
Make Changes
After studying your metrics, create a marketing plan to make the adjustments needed for a larger profit. Make only a couple of changes at a time, one may be even better – if you can closely watch the results each time.
Marketing is an ever-changing industry. What works one day may not work the next – because algorithms change. This is why whoever is in charge of the marketing in your business needs to try and keep up with the changes to give your business ongoing success. If a competitor learns more about marketing than you do, it may mean less profit in your pocket and more in theirs.